TSA nude body scanners made worthless by blog

Post Reply New Topic

If you refuse consent then you can leave and not fly, but I don't know if they would give you a refund. You know beforehand that it will happen because it's SOP now. By buying the ticket and getting in the line to board the plane, you are consenting to search. That is not the same as saying "Well, by going out on a date with me, you are consenting for me to grope you in the car because I always do that" and that could be considered sexual assault.

Also, the motive for the pat downs and body scans is to locate any contriband. It is not power nor sexual arousal nor aggression. Just because someone interprets it that way, does not make it so. If that were true then I should sue the police department for sexual assault every time I'm handcuffed. I could interpret being handcuffed as a sign of sexual dominance and say that it was nonconsensual sexual act and therefore I want all handcuffs taken out of use now. See how ridiculous that would be?

Nobody is saying you have to put up with it. Nobody is forcing you to fly. Nobody is saying that you aren't free to consider it sexual assault either. People are free to have their own opinions and beliefs. You are also free to believe that the TSA agents who are sexually assaulting others are also platypuses in disguise and a part of the underground new world order. That doesn't make either belief true though.

There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't like to be touched there by strangers. It bothers me". Why is that not something that people are saying rather than screaming "sexual assault" just because your boobs, crotch and butt are involved? Objecting to it because you feel that it's not appropriate for strangers to touch or see those areas is one thing, assigning all sorts of emotionally driven over the top hysterical labels to it is a horse of a different color. (Saying "horse of a different color" could be seen as animal abuse because it could be interpreted as condoning using artificial dye to change the color of a horse against it's consent - see the logic?)

That is why I'll never fly again. It's not worth the risk of having someone putting their hands all over my body just to get on a plane.

Witty! Here, have a medal!
_____
\.|../
..\./
(___)

Last edited by Beauty_pact on 31 Mar 2012, 3:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

What is the risk in that and how does it harm you?

Of course I think flying itself is a bigger risk than I'm willing to take unless I absolutely have to. I don't think it's terrorism that causes the risk, I think it's the fact that planes are in the air that causes the risk. I'm afraid of crashes.

Because being touched like that upsets me and I would likely refuse regardless of the consequences. I don't want people putting their hands on my body.

I don't know what it's like in the U.S. but I've had patdowns in British airports. The chap who did it wasn't aggressive (quite friendly, actually) and he wasn't too invasive either. a***hole airport staff is a big problem though.

I think I'm more sensitive about being touched than a lot of people. I prefer not to be touched at all and don't even hug if I can avoid it. Being touched makes me uncomfortable and I find a lot of touch to be upsetting.

What are the risks? What about those who have been placed in arrest, naked, for doing nothing else but refuse the nude scans or extended patdowns? What about when you indeed get groped to the point of rape (yes, it has happened) and you cannot even report the scumbag person, afterwards? What about when the attractive females are sent over and over through the scans? What about when TSA scumbags take "amusing" little photos of the scans with their mobiles? What about when the scans leak out on the Internet, afterwards (as they have)? Are you just supposed to shrug all this off and think "big deal"? Is that what you're saying? And for that matter, what about those who have left, for not wanting to get those invasive patdowns, or scans, and get hefty fines, afterwards? What about the inevitable increase in cancer that these scans surely will prove to lead to?

What about when they extend this to the rest of society, as well? What about the day when you cannot even take a walk, anymore, without TSA people dragging you to the side, to harrass you?

Some people don't understand, or don't care about how freedoms are taken away. They don't seem to notice if the process is gradual enough. If it just starts in a benign way, something "useful" or something to "protect" them. They don't object to it if it is minor enough, or they only occasionally have to deal with it. And it slowly become more and more of a sacrifice of freedoms they still don't object, it only a "little more". Just sacrifice a little more of what is already a compromised freedom, what can that hurt? And it just keeps becoming more, until the last man alive who lived in a time where the freedom existed dies, and a population wakes up that simply doesn't understand what freedom of privacy even means any more.

That is how you take away freedoms from people. Slow and gradual. Conditional at first, and then more uniform and all encompassing over time. Until the freedom is totally gone.

And the reason it's done like this...is so the masses don't even notice it's happening, or don't care enough to stop it.

agree totally...it is called ]the boiled frog effect. If you raise the temp on a frog ever so slowly...it will not jump out of the water and will evenually willingly be cooked to death.

First it is domestic spying, wiretapping, then fusion centers taking over all law enforcement and the justice dept, then its having to choose whether to be seen naked, grouped or dont fly which makes travel expensive and time consumimg, then its NDAA....see a pattern here?
The heat keeps getting turned up till one day we will be like United States of China.

Frightened people are easy to control...just give us your freedoms, we'll protect you.

Jojo

Then I fully support your right to not fly. You have every right in the world to dislike the searches and to avoid places where you may encounter them. I have an unreasonable dislike of searches by cops (car, person, etc) so I'll refuse those all day long even though there may be nothing to find. Mine doesn't stem from a true personal dislike of them though, mine is from pure stubborness and dislike of certain cops around here and the enjoyment I get from watching them get madder and madder when I keep refusing. Yeah I do them almost like a bully, but they bully everybody else and it's pretty fun to say "Toby, you can't intimidate me so stop even trying, it's a waste of time and you look silly doing it. Go on, bow up at me if you want, but I said no and n-o means no! Go on call Timmy at home and get him out the bed even though it's two o'clock in the morning and you tell him that a skinny girl won't let you search her car. See what kinda ass chewing that gets you! Either shut up and call him, or get on back in your car, cause I'm going home, I got a child with a fever that I run out to the One Stop to get this Tylenol for!! !" They get REAL upset. Funny thing is, the nice two who like don't ever try and get all in my face. They don't have a rason to search me, they are just bored. I ain't got nothing in my car, they just want to be like five year olds and stick their noses everywhere!

But, back to the TSA. I don't know what the solution is to the problem. They have to do everything that they can do to try and keep flying safe. After 9/11 we see that. They may go overboard in some instances, but it's probably because they don't know what else to do. I'm sure there are people who have a true aversion to being touched and some who have had actual sexual assault before and have mental problems from that who being touhed by strangers would bring up. I don't know how to fix it then, except not fly.

If I were you though, I'd get on my knees and thank whatever God you believe in that you have them. Flying itself is that dangerous I think, and those issues you have about the searches are keeping you off planes. I know they rarely crash, it's a much lower incidence than car wrecks but I'm TERRIFIED of flying. I wish planes had never been invented. You cannot survive a plane crash usually. Well, Willie Nelson did, but he was drunk at the time and drunks tend to survive wrecks that others wont. There were actual reports once that a small plane he was in went down and had a crash landing. He climbed out, looked at the reporters, drunker than a bicycle, and said "Hey ya'll, I didn't spill my beer!" and held up the can and turned it up! I would not have such luck. I'd be spread for miles all over the site of the crash.

If you truly don't mind flying, and it's an inconvenience to you to not fly, I wonder if they have areas that you culd go into alone with a female agent who would go slowly and respect your feelings about being searched, but could do a search that would satisfy the TSA folks and that wouldn't go so far as to actually touch you.

Either you really believe this fringe conspiracy theory stuff, or your pretty good at writing this. Either way I say kudos for sending some amusement my way this Sunday afternoon.

It's easy to get caught up in that fringe conspiracy theory nutjob stuff though, so I'm not making fun of you if you do believe in it. I was once really caught up in the Y2K thing. I have a relative who truly believes that the US caused 9/11. I have another who believes that vaccines cause autism (I never got a vaccine, but that's neither here nor there to her). My own mother believes that her old people apartment parking lot, in this very small town with no crime hardly at all, is swarming with peeping tom perverts after dark, so she closes her curtains with clothespins at night so they miss the thrill of seeing her in her long gown and bathrobe in her chair, watching tv. So, people do get caught up in paranoia that doesn't make sense. Otherwise sensible people do. It happens. Sometimes they are able to think themselves out of it by looking at all the issues involved or seeing facts presented in black and white to them. Other times they believe that anyone who tries to talk them out of it must be part of the conspiracy. In the first scenario, it's a good thing that they can still reason. In the second scenario, they usually need some sort of treatment for the paranoia.

I don't know which catagory you would fall into. If you think it's the first, I'd really suggest looking up information to dispute these ideas. If it's the second I'd suggest talking to a mental health professional about this. Being upset because you can't use a certain mode of transportation without being touched in a way you dislike, and being angered by that is one thing. But seeing all kinds of wierd and nefarious motives for it is entirely another thing. The first is not the problem, the second is a huge problem.

Then again, you may be poking fun at conspiracy theory nutjobs and if you are, I say kudos!

For now at least I have a good excuse not to fly. I don't have id. I was going to get a new one recently but I didn't have enough points. I don't really need to fly. The only time it could possibly come up is if my mother got a bunch of money and wanted to go on a vacation or if my friend in another state wanted to pay for me to come visit which is very unlikely.

Even back pre 911 I've had some problems with flying although it wasn't touching related. The worst they ever did to me back then was made me lift the back of my shirt slightly to see that the rivets in the waist of my jeans were setting the wand off. They did lose my bag once which was pretty distressing although I eventually got it back.

I just hope they don't start this on other transportation or I'll never go anywhere again. A while ago I saw a video or web site where a bunch of people were stopped and thoroughly searched getting off of a train. Once a long time ago on a greyhound bus a cop came on and searched people's bags but not very thoroughly.

There are things I'd like to refuse out of principle but I don't always have the nerve to do so. Like this one time a cop asked to see in my DS case as I was walking to the library. I know that I didn't really have to consent to that and if I had thought about it ahead of time I know I would have wanted to refuse but I just ended up opening it because it was easier. I don't like conflict. I don't know what they expected to see in there unless they thought it looks like a case for a handgun.

With drug tests I want to refuse out of principle but might only end up refusing if they watch. I haven't had to do one of those in almost 19 years though.

I don't mind it if I think there is a good reason. I do believe that preventing people from hijacking planes and such is a good reason. The library thing, I wouldn't have minded that. The train and bus thing were probably because somebody had gotten a tip for something.

I tend to refuse when I feel that they are picking me out to search me. Not the random searches done by strangers, but when a cop stops you and then wants to search because he's suspiscious, I get mad. I totally refuse. It's even worse in this small town cause all the cops live here and we know each other. It's offensive in the real sense of the word, as in they know me but they still think I have some drugs or something. That ticks me off to no end.

Take the prison search for example. Now, the guards there work in town and they know me, but those are the rules for visiting convicts. So, it's my choice to either stay at home and not visit him or go visit him and get searched. They search everybody the same way. It's not personal. More than likely it's an acquaintance there searching me, and so it doesn't seem as "wierd". It's somebody I'm likely to run into at Wal Mart or the ER waiting room or the BP or something. They are no different than me, just doing the job they get paid to do.

I don't mind conflict at all. I'm extremely assertive. Years ago I used to work in this one new agey place. All the other ladies who worked there were really soft spoken and so overly polite to everybody that they could send you to the hospital in a diabetic coma just from talking to them. They were terrified of accidentally hurting anyone's feelings. Me, on the other hand, just said whatever I thought, when I thought it. I could care less about the results. They only hired me as a cook and because I could cook really, really good. It was a trade off on their part. So, the owner called all the ladies to a meeting and said he had hired someone to come and give an assertiveness seminar once a week for the next four weeks and we were all required to attend. They all sat there smiling and nodding and I said "Hey now! Nobody ever said anything about extra time, I have a husband and child at home and I'm not coming back so somebody can teach me how to send back an undercooked steak or how to say no to a mugger" He looked at me and said "I never, ever meant that I wanted you to come to these. You are the LAST PERSON ON EARTH I want to see get mouthier!" I said "Good, I'm going home then".

I'd like to add this photo to this thread, as well (as opposed to just in >this thread< and >this thread<)...

[Nude scan image removed due to privacy concerns. It was a mistake of mine to post it, uncensored.]

Last edited by Beauty_pact on 19 Jun 2012, 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

By spreading that poor victimized girls picture around the internet, you are taking part in her horrendous sexual assault by the TSA agents.

Even if it's only a computer generated image or someone willing to have it posted online, it's just sexually degrading women, so what you did is no better than the TSA agents you claim post pictures of people on websites.

Pornographer!! !!